Dr. Bitcoin on How to Install the Ethereum Mist wallet.

There’s been some interesting positive movement in the world of Ethereum, both locally in DFW as well as for the larger crypto markets. Just yesterday, Coinbase and GDAX announced support for Ethereum wallets and accounts on their web and mobile wallets – and last night at the weekly YoCoin meetup at Barista‘s event space, YoCoin made the announcement that they’re moving off the Scrypt algo over to an Ethereum based blockchain (the developers are doing a buy-back/swap).

As such, I was asked to do my Dr. Bitcoin thing and talk a little bit about what I knew of Ethereum and Turing-complete blockchains, which I enjoyed.

There’s a lot still not known by the general public about Ethereum and how it works tactically, so I thought I’d put together a brief tutorial for those that asked about how to download and install the Mist wallet (the name for the developer-supported wallet for Ethereum and Ethereum-based coins).

I’ll be adding a video tutorial and some additional screenshots for the YoCoin users as soon as I get the details from the developers. This step-by-step guide will get you as far as having your Mist wallet ready for action.

Head to the Download Page

Head to the “Github” repository. The only authorized place to currently download the Ethereum Mist wallet is right here. If someone tells you to download an Ethereum wallet, but sends you to another URL, it’s not the authorized place. The page should look like this one

Scroll Down to the Downloads

You’ll see a lot of different files listed. You’ll want to download the appropriate file that matches your operating system. Download the one labeled “Mist”, not Ethereum Wallet.

Save the File

Depending on your browser, it’ll look something like this.

Find the downloaded file

You should have a zip file in your downloads folder. Most operating systems know how to use this without any special configurations.

Extract the files on your computer

I like to create directories in my “Documents” folder to store downloaded software, but you may have a different way of doing things. You can easily do this in Windows by right-click dragging the file inside the zip file over to your Documents folder, like so. It’ll pop up a submenu to confirm – just say yes.

This might take a while.

There’s a lot of files.

Make it easy on yourself…

… and make a shortcut. Just right-click drag the Mist.EXE file in the newly created folder over to your desktop, and it’ll give you the submenu you see below. Select the option “Create Shortcuts Here.”

Click Confirm a few times.

You’ll see some pop-up windows about security and ToS acceptance. Say yes on both.

Setup and install.

You’ll a pop up window asking if you want to use the test network or the main network. Use the main network.

Password Creation

You’ll want to create a password. Use something easy to remember but hard to guess.

Wallet Import

You’ll be asked to import your old wallet. If this is your first time setting up, just ignore this screen.

Add some ETH and you’re Good to Go

Eventually you’ll need to load up a little bit of ether so that you’ll have what’s called “GAS” to cover your transaction fees (which you’ll be charged any time you send ETH or YOC. You can skip that for now.

Afternoon sir –
Is this wallet being loaded to my physical laptop or is this a web based wallet? If local, is there a process to back it up some how (maybe to an external drive or something like that)?